"My sister!" exclaimed her brother.
Her head rested on the bosom of those she loved; and, in the rapture of the moment, the pestilence and the desolation that reigned around were forgotten. At length, the danger to which she had exposed herself recurring to his mind--
"Let us flee from this horrid charnel-house, dearest," said Sir William, "to where our bridal may not be mingled with sights of wo, and where the pestilence pursueth not its victims. Come, my own--my betrothed--my Madeline, let us haste away."
"Wherefore would my William fly?" said she--and a smile of joy and of confidence played upon her lips; "have ye not defied death from the sword and the spear, and braved it as it sped with the swift-flying arrow, and would ye turn and flee from the pestilence which worketh only what the sword performs, and what chivalry requires as a sacrifice to the madness of woman"s folly? But whither would you flee to escape it?
Be it south or north, it is there; and east or west, it is there also.
If ye flee from the pestilence, would ye flee also from the eye of Him who sends it?"
Again they urged her to leave the city; and again she endeavoured to smile; but it died languidly on her lip--the rose on her cheek vanished, and her mild eyes in a moment became dim. She sank her head upon the bosom of her lover, and her hand rested on the shoulder of her brother.
The contagion had entered her heart. A darkening spot gathered upon her fair cheek--it was the shadow of the finger of death--the seal of eternity!
"My Madeline!" cried Sir William. "Merciful Heaven!--spare her! spare her!"
"Oh, my sister!" exclaimed her brother, "have I hastened to my native land, but to behold thee die?"
She feebly pressed their hands in hers--"Leave me--leave me, loved ones!--my William!--my brother!--flee from me!--there is death in the touch of your Madeline!--We shall meet again!"
The disease which at that time desolated England was in some respects peculiar, even as a plague. The dark spots which so clearly indicated the presence of the spoiler began in a mere darkening of some part of the body; but so virulent was the disease, and so rapid its onset and course, that even a visitor might perceive the beginning, and mark the progress towards death, during the short period of a call.
The plague-spot darkened on the cheek of Madeline Aubrey, and, in a few hours, she was numbered with its victims.
END OF VOL. XIV